The present invention relates to the extraction of fiber flocks from textile bales in general, and more particularly to a method and an arrangement for accomplishing such extraction in a controlled manner in dependence on the characteristic properties of the bales and their material.
There is already known a bale opening machine which is distributed under the trademark UNIFLOC by the assignee of the present invention and in which a flock extraction device is mounted on a carrier which is movable back and forth along the bales. This known arrangement renders it possible to extract fiber flocks from bales having different dimensions and particularly heights and/or containing different fiber materials. The extraction device of this known arrangement includes a fiber extraction member which passes between grid bars and projects to a predetermined extent beyond such grid bars.
During the use of this arrangement for fiber flock extraction, the grid bars also penetrate into the surface layer of the respective bale, but the depth of such penetration of the grid bars into the surface layer of the bale is less than that of the extraction member by the aforementioned predetermined extent. The penetration of the extraction member into the surface layer of the bale is often referred to as the extraction or penetration depth and it can vary in dependence on the extraction power.
German published patent application DE-OS No. 32,45,506 discloses a device in which the extraction member can penetrate with a variable force into the bale surface layer in dependence on the density of the bale layer to be opened.
Variation of the fiber type, and the extraction conditions which result therefrom, were not taken into consideration in the known methods and arrangements which have been mentioned above.